Want to know why she keeps smiling?
A constant smile lowers the victim's guard. Especially when Noshiro Chiose's smile happens to be exceptionally pretty.
"Talk? What is there for us to talk about... we don't have..."
"Shh. Sakiko, don't say anything just yet."
While Sakiko wasn't paying attention, Chiose had already closed the distance between them, and even Sakiko was startled by it.
[Wait, when did she— I... I didn't even see her move.]
She had never bothered to measure it before, so Sakiko had no idea how much taller Chiose actually was. But now, with Chiose standing directly in front of her, she could feel it clearly: a whole forehead's worth of difference.
With the streetlight at her back, Chiose's shadow fell over Togawa Sakiko and swallowed her whole. Inside that shadow, every beat of Sakiko's heart came faster than the one before it.
Every breath she drew in carried that scorching scent that belonged to Chiose alone.
"Sakiko, would you give me your hand?"
There was nothing in Chiose's tone that could be argued with. It made Sakiko want to curl up into a ball.
Add to that the crimson eyes flowing with gold light in the darkness, and Sakiko took a step back before she could stop herself.
"I..."
"Thanks for cooperating," said Chiose, who had already caught Sakiko's small hand mid-retreat and tugged her carefully forward, until the two of them were pressed together again.
Over the long course of her Simulation career, Chiose had learned one thing, and that was—
[Reasoning with someone and soothing them slowly is the slowest method there is. It might even leave you looking pathetic.]
So how should you comfort a person? The answer:
[Just manipulate her outright. Isn't that faster?]
She was a bad woman, after all. When dealing with one high school girl, why not walk right up and show off the professional skills she took such pride in?
Dithering wouldn't accomplish a thing. Least of all with a character as complicated as Togawa Sakiko.
Chiose slowly raised Sakiko's hand and pressed it flat over her own heart.
"You—! What do you think you're doing! I, I, I..."
Face burning, Sakiko tried to pull her hand back, but Chiose held it there with exactly the right amount of pressure.
"Sakiko, can you hear it? That's my heartbeat. Doesn't it sound lovely?"
"What are you— you just wanted me to listen to your heartbeat?! I..."
The softness under her palm made Sakiko feel like her soul was melting. Even she couldn't explain why the useless fat on Chiose's body felt this good.
"That's right, Sakiko, that's right. You looked so tired, so I thought I'd let you listen to my heartbeat. I hear that listening to a good friend's heartbeat soothes exhaustion away."
"Where on earth did you hear a rumor like that..."
Sakiko muttered it under her breath. Her hand didn't move away.
She swore it was only because Chiose wouldn't let her pull it back. It absolutely was not that she didn't want to move.
Chiose said nothing more. She simply advanced, one small step after another.
And with each step Sakiko was forced backward under Chiose's control. This floor belonged to their two families alone, and at the end of the corridor was the corner where the cardboard boxes were stacked. Chiose backed Sakiko right into it.
"Little Chiose... what are you doing..."
To her own astonishment, Sakiko heard how soft her voice had gone. She was almost too embarrassed to admit the sound belonged to her.
"Don't talk."
After those three short words, Chiose fell silent. She simply stood there, quietly holding Sakiko's gaze.
One second. Ten seconds. A full minute, maybe ten minutes had gone by? Sakiko didn't know.
She was forced into this exchange of stares, and those red pupils were so strange, so unfathomable. The dark around them was total, without a scrap of light.
Chiose's eyes had become Sakiko's only source of light in the blackness.
Ring within ring, fine and densely arrayed, five of them nested together. Sakiko stared until she felt faint.
[Ah...]
It was so quiet. All Sakiko could hear was her own breathing and Chiose's. Her hand still cradled the softest treasure in the world, and even the exhaustion and the irritation seemed to be dissolving away.
Sakiko even caught herself thinking that spending a lifetime like this wouldn't be so bad.
In the end it was Chiose who broke the stillness of the night first. Her lips parted and closed again:
"How about it? Feeling a little better now? Can you talk to me properly now, my adorable Sakiko?"
"Mm..."
Chiose's voice was lovely too, so honeyed that it sent a shiver all the way down Sakiko's spine.
"Sakiko, promise me you won't avoid me anymore, all right? It hurts me when you shut me out. You're my best friend, and I want us to be able to talk everything through. All right?"
[Best friend? Me? Is she serious?]
"But Tomori and the others—"
"Sakiko is my best friend. Sakiko only needs to remember that."
Noshiro Chiose had just deployed the classic maneuver: dodge the heavy question, change the subject. But she said it with such certainty that Sakiko never even noticed.
"I... I'm sorry, Little Chiose... I..."
"Are you feeling awful about it? They used to be your friends, didn't they. And now they aren't anymore?"
So Chiose did know! Chiose really did—
The urge to run rose in Sakiko again. But the treasure in her hand was too soft, the air around her smelled too good, Chiose's voice was too beautiful... her body had no real interest in escaping.
"Yes... it hurts. But I know it was my choice. There was no other way..."
"Sakiko doesn't need to hurt like that."
Watching Sakiko walk step by step into the trap she'd laid so carefully, Chiose felt the corners of her mouth curl upward in the pitch dark, entirely on their own.
"Because Sakiko still has me. They may have left Sakiko behind, but Sakiko still has me. Haven't I been right here beside you this whole time? Sakiko, don't think about it so much."
Chiose kept the pace of every sentence exactly the same, because paired with a perfectly comfortable setting, speaking that way made a person far easier to reel in.
All of this was just one of Chiose's methods for making friends fast. She hadn't even put any real effort in yet and Sakiko had already gone soft, which left her no room to use most of her tricks.
How disappointing.
"Little Chiose, will I always have you?"
Sakiko believed her, because it was only now that she had accepted the fact that Noshiro Chiose was the only friend she had left.
Tomori and Soyo were two examples. Only today had Sakiko realized how much less she mattered than she'd imagined.
"That's right. Sakiko still has me. I'm the only one who'll be good to Sakiko, so my adorable Little Sakiko should lean on her Chiose a whole lot more. We're best friends, aren't we?"
Another sleight of hand, one of countless she had pulled tonight, and not one of them had left the faintest trace. Noshiro Chiose was working her way in, slowly and steadily.
[As long as Sakiko holds steady, everyone else will hold steady too.]
Chiose remembered that... ugh, everyone still cares about Sakiko to some degree, right? Probably.
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